Sunday, 23 March 2014

We use
pots and pans as ashtrays because we cannot afford food, when this soul wants
something harsher, something deeper. We live in snares of happy delusions and
in smiled disappointments.

Tolstoy said,
“The only true knowledge a man can have is that life is meaningless.” And
Tolstoy got that one right. If you look scientifically, life is just a chemical
accident, a grand result of evolution, all our feelings that we hold so dear
are nothing but a few chemicals interacting in particular areas of our brain. And
in the most reductionist of ways life is nothing but A, C, T, G, U (the base
pairs of DNA and RNA). If Carbon was not the most fertile element of the
periodic table, we would not be carbon based organisms. If evolution took a
different course, we would look different and react differently to different
stimuli. So the question that takes away our sleep arises, ‘what is the purpose
of this chemical accident we are thrown into?’. And we all ask ourselves this questions,
sometimes we just don’t know we are asking this question. This question makes
people addicts or delusionary or depressed or cynical, hollow and dark.It haunts
us when we are alone , at night when the trivialties of the world are done,
when the neon lights have died ot when the blue computer lights of your virtual
life has gone into slumber. Everyone wants to do something meaningful with our
lives, but rarely do we find any. You could save a life, but that does not make
a man immortal. Fact is our biology betrays us here, and as Camus would say, “Lucid
reasoning knows its reasoning.” Or as Blake would say that if only our doors of
perception were cleansed.

This
absolute lack of meaning causes in us what the existentialists call angst. Or what
Camus called the Absurd. The conflict that arises when we look for meaning in a
meaningless life. Isn’t that the mistake we all make? And is that not why we
want something more from life , no matter how much we get? We humans are indeed
a curious lot. We spend our life looking for something that isn’t there. And then
we become sad and bitter. Some drown themselves into oceans of vices , and some
into the depths of their minds.

This is
where Camus’s ‘ The Myth of Sisyphus’ fits perfectly. Sisyphus stole death from
the gods and as a punishment he had to carry a stone up a mountain top. When he
reached the top , the stone would be pushed down and he would have to continue
the end of time. And yes, Sisyphus is the ultimate existentialist hero. We are
all in Sisyphus’s juxtaposition.We live our lives , study our books , do our
jobs , grow old and die , and then someone else takes our place , and then even
our substitutions get substituted. But
then Camus ends Sisyphus with perhaps the most important lines ever written.”
The struggle itself is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus
happy.”

Here is
what I think it means. Even the saddest of us have had some beautiful and happy
moments in our lives. Something that makes you feel a bit wry in our most
vulnerable moments. Maybe the summers you spent as a child playing with your
friends, or nocturnal winter walks of solitude. Maybe it was your mother’s
smile when you were just a kid, and if you are lucky enough you found it
another person (lucky you!). So life, does not have meaning. So we are not
truly free. As Sartre said,” Man is condemned to be free , because once thrown
into the world , he is responsible for his actions.” But we humans have one
quality that perhaps stops many recluses from becoming misanthropic. And that
is beauty. Beauty in whatever you find it in. Some see it in art, some in
writing, some in science , some in saving lives, some in the joy of finding
things out. In chaos or order , beauty is beauty . It is not a disease to be
classified. To quote Thoreau,” Let every man march to the music he hears.” You
cannot make a dying man immortal, but you cannot deny the joy of a birth or the
beauty in alleviating suffering. And that is enough to fill an man’s heart.
They are like the summer of life in an otherwise cold winter. And yes porcupine
tree got it succinitly right….’ Always the summers are slipping away. Find me a
way to make it stay…’ You will slip into the winters , but summer shall come
and you will feel that intense innocence of childhood summers even if your
tongue has been burnt off to taste.

So ultimately,
the only real thing in our lives is the beauty wherever we see it. Objectively
, there is no meaning to life and the universe. Most people move around in
groups of three or five and think the universe is concentrated in their groups.
And these people will probably be the real living manifestations of Sisyphus. But
you are not one of them. Otherwise you wouldn’t stumble upon this rambling in
this corner of the internet. We just have to accept that we never will beat the
absurd , but we cannot let it prevent us from experiencing the one singular
beauty we find amongst so much angst. We are but grains of sand in a
meaningless shore, but that does not deny us the right to experience the calm
of the sea. Or as the greatest of troubadours should say,”Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind.Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen
leaves,The haunted, frightened trees,
out to the windy beach.Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free.Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands.With all memory and fate
driven deep beneath the waves.Let me forget about today until tomorrow.”

Storm has passed, and seasick sailors
have rowed off a sea of nuances,

But these are other rooms, other
voices.

The misfit is the
ebony,

And that is the root of my agony.

I belong, on the outside, far
beyond the rising tide,

In such darkness, where there is
nothing left to hide.

If there ever was an apparition as
the light,

It shall know on which tide I lie.

Note: This poem may be taken in two ways. Firstly about alienation, if you belong in the light , it will flow through you, otherwise you are where you belong.Secondly it is about death, the somber door is the door of death and the narrator sees his reflection in the Styx. But he does not belong there as well. He is a sailor. He belongs to the waves, even if they are of the Styx .He just wants to be free, to have nothing to hide , whether in darkness or in light.

But then again it is a poem and it may have several interpretations, these are just the two I could think of.

Sinking
me into the depths of my mind.* This poem is about how each time , I think I have found a place for myself on 'the otherside' , the attractive side , with all its flashy lights. Alas, those lights bring pleasure and never truth and beauty. And every time this happens , I learn to accept myself the way I am a bit more and enjoy my solitude a bit more */

Sunday, 2 March 2014

**“You know
what your problem is ?” Andy screamed into my face“ The hell
if I know.” I said in the most I-couldn’t-care-less voice.“You’re a
wimp. You are scared and you’re too scared to admit it. That’s your problem.”Andy was one
of the nicer guys I knew, but he was acting like such a pain today. I guess
success does that to people. He sold a bunch of his paintings to this big time
art house. Guy had been bragging about it all evening. I just wish he’d shut
up. That’s what success and this bad world does to you. They give you this
misplaced sense of ego. And that is the negation of all true art.“ You think
you’re some kinda rebel. You come here every evening , meet with the pavement
artistes everyday and bring this new painting of yours. But you never have the
gumption to sell it do you? Talk as much as you want about the satisfaction it
is that you get and call me a traitor as much as you want. Fact is you are far
too scared to let the world see your art. I don’t know what it is that you’re
scared of. All you do is give it the name of protecting your art. Like the
entire world is out to corrupt your soul. Like if you made a buck out of a
picture , you’d never be able to paint again.”By now I
knew Andy was beyond saving. Materialistic society had claimed yet another
victim.“Hey man.
You used to be all about integrity, all about expressing yourself through your
art. So now you go and stoop low. Look
at your older pictures man. They had soul. And then look at that bunch you’ve
whored out. They’re just pretty colours on the canvas .Sure they’re pretty you
didn’t become a painter for the pretty colours did you?”“Well I’m
not the one who makes these so called paintings with soul and never lets them
out in the market. Every artist needs an audience and artists love their audience,
they live off it. What do you have to be scared of?”Andy shot into my face. He
had a funny way of talking when he was angry, but never did he talk like this.
But then again he wasn’t really himself now.“You damn
well know why I’m not a sell-out like you.”I shot out in anger.” People don’t
think and I don’t make dumb paintings. You have the people, who think, then the
people who think that they think and then those who’d rather die than think.
I’d rather keep my ideas to myself than sell it out to an audience who can’t
appreciate them.”“Whatever man,
I’m out of this place. Good luck to you but take my advice man. Showing your
art’s a part of the process. If I had your talent I’d never sleep hungry. Good
luck and good bye.” Andy finally said and then walked out into the horizon.I just
walked on till I reached the beach .The sun was almost setting and I was alone.
Just how I like it. With nothing but the sound of the waves hypnotising me,
drowning me. I watched the sun set and never felt like leaving. Damn Andy got
paid and lost it. He was not better a painter than I was .True, he did have
soul until he decided to sell it all away. But art was way too personal for me.
The cool sea breeze hit me and the sun had almost set. Just a few shafts of
elegant orange and pink beams in the sky fighting the approaching darkness of
night. Maybe that’s just who I was. I was fighting the good fight. Trying to
maintain my voice as the vast darkness tried to encroach upon it. The waves were
like my paintings to me .The only cooling for my thoughts. The only thing vast
enough to encapsulate within itself the storms within my mind. And sometimes
these stormy seas produced my greatest paintings. This sea was where I
belonged. I wanted to drown in it. The sea , the waves , they were my reward.
No money, no recognition could ever come close to the calmness ,grace and
elegance of these waves. **The day job
was done. And I was alone at my apartment to drown in those waves again. That
crazy sell-out Andy’s words were still in my head from yesterday. Maybe he was
right. Maybe I was scared. To tell you the truth, the problem’s that I cannot
do anything halfway. And everything that I’ve ever painted has been has been
about my feelings. Sometimes it is so easy to paint and sometimes I have to
search so hard to feel anything inside me ,to find any concept worth drawing.
And sometimes these feelings of love, anger, angst, depression, pathos and
sapience just fill me to the brim. Mostly angst and depression. I guess the
world tends to do that to you. But it’s like I cannot function if I don’t put
it out on canvas. I have no idea what a painting’s going to look like when I
start. I just have an idea almost a feeling and I let myself float into those
waves. I go in with my heart full of pain and drown in these waves and I come
out healed. I feel I can function until the next time my heart’s all filled up
again. And that canvas captures a piece of me. That is who I am at my most
vulnerable position. I guess this type of catharsis makes me a better artist
but it is too much of me to let the whole world see.I have this
box in which I put in all my paintings after I show it to the people I know
will appreciate the depth of it. Sometimes it was just Andy and I who could get
it…… Andy damn, he just had to go and get me all wrapped up in all this self
loathing…. Why couldn’t he just gloat about selling his identity and get it
over with?......I’ve never
opened this box except to put a new painting , a new piece of me into it. I’ve
never had the courage to see my own paintings. I don’t know what memories it
might just bring up again. All of them were like pictures of me at those times
I was under those waves….. Maybe the only time I was truly myself. I don’t know
why but I felt like looking at those paintings. They were exactly what make me
and that little chat with Andy was probably making me want to see those frames
in order.For the
first time I opened up that box, and laid out the canvases. There was my first
painting, and perhaps my most honest. It was just this kid playing on the edge
of this cliff. What I meant out of it
was that the kid was going to grow up soon and turn into a hypocrite, consumed
by the big bad world. He was about to fall of that cliff on which he was just
playing like any innocent child. I just wanted to capture that one moment of
innocence in that painting. I remember that day clearly. The first time I had
sailed those waves. I remember how relieved I was when the painting was done.
It was almost like the canvas was speaking to me. And it continued too till
this day. Every happiness every joy was in that box , almost like a diary of
sorts. I looked at every one of paintings and recalled the storm that caused
that picture.All this
retrospection was making me feel the waves rise again. I was way too attached
to that box , that diary of mine to let it go into that big bad world. It only
belonged with those waves.I picked up
my brush and dipped it into my pallet hoping the canvas would yet again be my
muse. But it refused to talk to me. **There I was
after a month in the same juxtaposition. Brush in had like every night for the
last month. But the storm never burst, and I never drowned in those waves. My
muse still wouldn’t talk to me. I guess some storms aren’t even enough for the
waves to withstand. I was too tenacious. The fact that I put myself into my art
made it better. The only way a storm would really subside, the only way I would
get closure from any of the situations in that boxed diary of mine was if I let
it free. I would overcome my feelings only when I let the world in rather than
push it away. Most people wouldn’t get it at all. But those people were not the
point. The point was that I felt that I was strong enough to face the world
rather than hide behind my waves. **I reached
the beach and where the pavement artists put up some of their paintings. I too
brought a painting , my first nonetheless . The one with the kid about to jump
the ledge. I saw Andy’s silhouette approach in the fading sunlight of the sea
line.So ? ready
to sell your soul to the big bad world?” he asked.“No ready to
fight it.” I answered.The sun set
and I drowned in those waves again.The storm
had subsided.This post is written for adviceadda.com, for which I am contributing as a writer.You can log on to the website@ http://www.adviceadda.com